Arguably the greatest English-language poet of the 20th Century, T.S. Eliot, wrote, with brutal realism, in his poem “East Coker,”
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
A devout Anglican, Eliot surely would have known by heart another English Thomas’ beautiful poetic prayer of humble access,
We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.
I wonder if this prayer was on Eliot’s heart as he wrote about the sharp compassion of the healer’s art? Today He, who for us men and for our salvation deigned to allow Himself to be hung on a cross as an expiation for our sins, will once again climb the hill of Calvary and once again endure the hammer blows and be affixed to the wood of the cross.
Good Friday Footsteps
Good Friday always takes me back to South Omaha, St. Martin of Tours Episcopal Church, mediocre fish sandwiches at the McDonalds on 24th and J, tracing the footsteps in my mind between 4412 S. 20th and church and back again. Some of my earliest and best memories are of Good Friday’s spent with my Grandma. From the time I was 2 until Grandma’s last Good Friday on this Earth, when I was 37 years old, I cannot remember too many that we did not spend together.
Grandma and I were Good Friday people. It was, in fact, Grandma’s favorite day of the year. Pointing the domineering crucifix mounted on the rood beam at church, she would tell me time and again, “that’s my promise.” It took me years to fully understand the magnanimity that was involved in Grandma’s otherwise simple three words.
Understanding Compassion
Theologically Good Friday takes me back to the bargaining of Abraham with God in Genesis 18. Abraham, as if needing to remind God of His very properties of love and mercy, bargains for the righteous of Sodom and Gomorrah. Holding God’s feet to the fire, as it were, Abraham gets God to admit that, despite all the evil transpiring in the cities, if Abraham could find a mere 10 righteous people, God would spare His wrath. Sending His only Son into the world some millennia later, Jesus, Himself, would have suffered all the agony and scorn of the crucifixion for just one righteous person in the world. If Grandma, or myself, or you, or your neighbor were the only righteous person in the world, He would have died for the salvation of one. That was Grandma’s promise, our promise, the promise for all of humanity.
Continuing, Eliot writes:
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
We cannot even begin to understand our promise, though, if we do not first accept our need for a Savior such as this. That is, we must acknowledge that we are terminally ill. Not physically but spiritually. Our sin is incurable without the wounded surgeon plying away the steel from our very hearts and souls.
Good Friday is our poignant reminder that we, ourselves, at this very moment are in the hospital dying in agony from Adam’s curse, the deadliest of all diseases. Fortunately though, He, whom is the Divine Physician, left us a salve to ease our suffering as we linger in this Earthly hospital of lost souls. Eliot finishes with these utterly poignant words:
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food;
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood–
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
From the desolation of the grave
Even today, as we experience the desolate barrenness of every tabernacle around the world, Our Savior, the very wounded surgeon Himself, left us His bloody flesh to consume, so that our anguish can be sated, at least partially, until we join Him, finally, at the great Eucharistic feast in Heaven. That was Grandma’s promise, that’s our promise.
My best friend, Fr. Rob, was able to confer the Apostolic Blessing upon Grandma shortly before her death. This is a special blessing with a plenary indulgence, meaning the recipient is granted the remission of all temporal punishment due to sin. I pray that Grandma, today, and for the rest of eternity is basking in the warmth of her promise that she clung too for so much of her Earthly existence. I look forward to the day that I too can join her there
I plan to once again spend part of Good Friday with Grandma today. It will be different, obviously, than in years past. The day’s of McDonald’s fish sandwiches are over, I’ve upgraded to higher quality. We won’t be sitting around the kitchen table at 4412 either, but rather I’ll sit by her grave for awhile, I’ll talk and she’ll listen and I’ll bask in the knowledge that she’s already celebrating the eternal Easter feast. Thank you Grandma for sharing your promise with me, thanks for making me a Good Friday person.
